Soitec raises solar stakes in San Diego

A federal government-backed solar manufacturing facility has started up production at a new factory in San Diego’s Rancho Bernardo neighborhood less than a year after breaking ground.

The Soitec factory is one new milestone in a push by the United States to build up a manufacturing base in the rapidly evolving renewable energy sector.

Soitec, a publicly traded semiconductor company based in Bernin, France, received a $25 million grant from the Department of Energy to pay for 25 percent of its manufacturing equipment. The construction project’s overall costs, including adjoining offices, exceeded $150 million, the company said.

Standing next door to local Sony office and a few blocks from Interstate 15, the San Diego facility is positioned to supply utility-scale solar power plants cropping up across the desert Southwest.

In particular, the Mojave and northern Sonora deserts, bordering huge population centers and crisscrossed by transmission lines, are on the factory’s doorstep. The solar sector also stands to profit as federal and state governments work to streamline renewable energy development on the vast stretches of sun-drenched public land.

Clark Crawford, vice president of business development for Soitec, said development is destined to shift toward the best natural resources as introductory government subsidies unwind, echoing
market research
at the Natural Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The facility currently employs 125 people and plans to add hundreds more. The staff is mostly local, but includes three German and six French employees here on two year assignments.

The solar arrays produced by Soitec are a breed apart from traditional silicon panels commonly seen on rooftops and utility installations.

They rely on concentrated photovoltaic solar technology that uses a lens to focus light on a circular, multi-junction cell no bigger than a ladybug.

The lenses and cells are bundled into panels the size of a double garage door, then mounted on dual-axes trackers that trace the sun across the sky.

The technology continues to attract investment as semiconductor companies steadily achieve new efficiencies in converting light to electricity. Utilities are attracted a more constant power curve from dawn to dusk than that of traditional panels.

The concentrated photovoltaic sector is not immune, however, from competition based on low-cost panels. In July, Seal Beach-based Amonix closed its 214,000-square-foot plant in Nevada, citing panel prices and weaker than expected demand for its concentrated photovoltaic systems.

The Department of Energy's investment at the Rancho Bernardo plant served as a strong endorsement of Soitec and its potential for sustained manufacturing, Crawford said. The grant came with a commitment to at least five years of production.

“It’s an acknowledgement from the DOE that (concentrated photovoltaics) can be manufactured domestically and compete with low-cost imports,” he said.

The Soitec plant has a highly automated assembly line that borrows standard-issue machinery and robotics from other industries -- heavy conveyor belts and radial arms developed by the glass sector, micro-soldering units used on circuit boards and pick-and-place devices from the semiconductor trade.

Engineers adapted the equipment in matter of months, after gaining access to the building in July.